Description:
Reference #: 01251
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for using left-right signatures that can distinguish between non-metastatic and metastatic triple negative breast tumors.
Background:
The three most common types of receptors known to fuel breast cancer growth are estrogen, progesterone, and the HER-2. A patient is said to have been diagnosed of triple negative breast cancer when these factors are absent. Approximately 15-20% of all breast cancer patients have tumors that are classified as triple negative breast cancers. The distinction between this kind of cancer and others is important because they respond to vastly different kinds of treatment. While triple negative breast cancers do not respond to receptor-targeted treatments, other forms of cancer are treated with remedies that target the three named receptors. One of the greatest challenges with these kinds of cancers is that there are currently no available biomarkers or targeted biological therapies available for treating patients with the triple negative breast cancer subtype.
Invention Description:
The subject invention are gene expression signatures that have been identified for human triple negative breast cancer. These signatures were derived from differences between left and right side triple negative breast tumors. Based on mouse data, the left-right signatures can distinguish between non-metastatic and metastatic triple negative breast tumors.
Potential Applications:
The gene expression signatures can be used to identify novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, as well as drug targets for developing new treatments for inhibiting breast cancer metastasis.
Advantages and Benefits:
Currently, there are no prognostic biomarkers to distinguish between triple negative breast tumors with low versus high risk of metastasis or to assess a patient's longer-term risk of triple negative breast cancer metastatic recurrence. The subject invention solves this problem. There are also no available targeted biological therapies available for treating patients with the triple negative breast cancer subtype. Identifying drug targets for this disease is can be achieved given this invention. It is anticipated that these biological therapies would be superior to currently available treatments (i.e. conventional chemotherapy, radiation therapy).